For drink writing that's almost as good as an actual drink, try Everyday Drinking, a collection of Kingsley Amis's writings from the 1970s.

Kingsley Amis's drink writing is better than anybody else's, ever -- even though there wasn't a single cocktail or category of booze he could write about without making a grievous factual error. No matter. Because Amis's writing on the topic, now collected as Everyday Drinking (Bloomsbury, $20), isn't really about drinks at all; it's about drinking. Big difference.

For Amis, who wrote most of the pieces in this collection in the 1970s, a stiff glass of something alcoholic was essential to civilized life. Make that two glasses, or three. Modern mixographers, writing in an age in which alcoholism is frowned upon, give the sense that they would always prefer one perfect cocktail to however many decent ones. Not Amis. As one of his indispensable General Principles states: "Up to a point . . . go for quantity rather than quality." And once he had those drinks in him, he was ready to teach you a thing or two. How to get your friends out of the house with your stash of good liquor intact. What it means to be British. Why certain things -- drinks, entire nationalities -- are simply unspeakable. And how to write about a technical subject without being an insufferable geek about it.